Weekend Preview: 7/21/2012

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Sat Jul 21 2012 3:25pm

Top WFTDA Action

Star of Texas Bowl: (4) Texas hosts in Austin as (1) Gotham, (14) Windy City and (6) Bay Area join in a two-day, six-game round robin event. See DNN's Feature Preview. Live stream available on wftda.tv beginning with Windy City @ Texas at 3pm Central time on Saturday, July 21.

Detroit @ (19) Steel City (Saturday); Detroit @ (21) Dutchland (Sunday): This weekend will likely be carefully watched by North Central teams -- even though Detroit hasn't always made it to Championships, they've entered the playoffs as an odds-on favorite to finish in the top three every year since 2009. After a eight-month hiatus following the 2011 North Central tournament, though, Detroit's all-star team got upended by lower-ranked Arch Rival and thoroughly routed by a Minnesota team they'd played closely last fall. Detroit has never lost to Steel City before. Wins here would definitely suggest that the Brewhaha weekend was an early-season outlier, but if Detroit takes two more losses this weekend, they could be in for a tough time at September's playoffs. No live coverage scheduled.

Cincinnati @ Chicago Outfit: The Chicago Outfit continues to have the very definition of an up-and-down season -- they're now 5-5 after having perfectly alternated wins and losses all year long. Last weekend saw the Outfit put up a fairly strong first half against DNN #25 Arch Rival, where ARRG led by only 12 at the half, but the Outfit couldn't hold in the second half and lost by 91. Cincinnati recently defeated the Outfit in a June 2 meeting, but it was a relatively close 139-119 affair. With Cincinnati having lost to shared opponent Arch Rival by slightly more than the Outfit just did (127 points), this one looks like a tossup -- and could be a preview of early-round action at the North Central playoffs, depending on how the seeding works out. No live coverage scheduled.

Brewcity @ Madison: It's been a tough year for both of these perennial NC top ten teams, but both of these teams might be a bit better than their win-loss records would imply. Madison, stuck at #10 in the region since going winless at last year's playoffs, has a couple of quality losses against Arch Rival (10 points early in the season) and Ohio (26 points in June). Overall they're 2-6. Brewcity is an even less imposing 1-4, but came within 11 points of a very inconsistent Chicago Outfit in their most recent game; Brewcity's currently #6 in the region but can fairly expect to lose at least a couple of slots to Ohio and Arch Rival based on second-quarter activity. With serious churning at the edges of the region's top ten, both teams could very much use a big statement win here to reaffirm their regional standing. Watch live on DNN in collaboration with Hinckley Design & Production.

Columbia @ Atlanta: Columbia made waves early this year in February when they pulled a narrow nonsanctioned upset on long-established Carolina, but they haven't had a chance to play WFTDA-playoff level competition since then. That changes this weekend as they take on Atlanta. Columbia has won their first 4 WFTDA sanctioned games, and according to Flat Track Stats, is currently riding an eye-popping 33-game win streak dating back to mid-2009 -- so Atlanta could conceivably have their hands full here.

Other WFTDA Action

East: 24E New Hampshire, who scored a couple of significant rankings upsets over 16E Dominion and 17E River City at ECDX, ramps up the challenge level as they go to Canada to take on DNN #11 and current 6E Montreal; 22SC Little City (Johnson City, TN) goes out of region to play @ River City; 13E Queen City visits @ Dominion on Saturday and has a closed bout with River City on Sunday; unranked Rocktown tries their luck when they travel to play 18E Cape Fear.

North Central: 18NC Demolition City (Evansville, IN) is in road action against unranked Black-N-Bluegrass (Latonia, KY); Indianapolis's unranked Circle City, who recently won their debut game as a full WFTDA member over 23NC Derby City, hosts 21NC Killamazoo.

South Central: 25SC Springfield heads to Fayetteville to play 19SC NW Arkansas; 23SC Dixie is on the road against 24SC Alamo City.

West: There's just one WFTDA sanctioned game in the West this weekend, as 11W Tucson looks to hold their ground on the road against 17W Santa Cruz.